said the shotgun to the head
by consideringphlebas
Summary: Jane's done.


**I'm sorry, I just needed to get this out. It's no masterpiece. Set slightly after remember me, i guess. **

**and**

**Suicide warning, for the love of god, suicide warning.**

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As Maura walked into her home, she heard the distinct click of a gun loading. The alarms had been set, so there couldn't possibly be an intruder. She cautiously closed the door and removed her heels. Slowly, she moved towards the main living room and as she started to turn the corner, she saw a broken bottle of beer smashed against the portion of the wall that she could see. Had there been a struggle? She knew that Jane had been home all day, but there were no other noises to confirm that anybody was in the room. So she decided to turn the corner, and enter.

Quickly, she took in the sights. Jane's punching bag was still slowly swinging in the corner of the room, unpacked boxes of Jane's belongings were upturned all over the room, and in the middle of it all was Jane herself. Knuckles bloodied and bruised, she was gently tossing her service gun back and forth between her hands.

Maura stopped in her tracks. "Jane?"

Silence.

"Jane? What are you doing?."

Jane momentarily ceased her actions and looked up at Maura. She held her gaze for a minute or two, then looked back down at her gun, continuing to fiddle with it.

Maura didn't want to escalate the situation (it wasn't really what she was thinking it was, was it?) so she gently laid her purse down on the ground and stepped neither towards or away from Jane. "Jane. Please Jane, you're scaring me. Say something."

"You should leave." Jane didn't even look up this time, still focusing on the heavy object in her hands. There was a moment of silence again. Maura was shaken, still trying to comprehend what she was seeing. She had noticed that Jane's mood had been off lately, but she hadn't thought that anything was nearly this bad.

"Maura, leave. I don't want you here." Jane's voice sounded tired, raspier than normal.

Maura was still trying to avoid the reality of the situation. She rapidly threw various scenarios through her head, but only one fit this context. "And what if I want to be here?"

"Why would you want to be here?" Jane's eyes quickly flashed up to meet Maura's. "Do you not understand what is going on here? You're the fucking genius." Maura's face crumbled slightly. Jane waved the gun around in the air, supposedly to make her point. "Do you not get it? I don't want you to see- me."

At hearing Jane's words, Maura's eyes started to tear up. "If you need me to leave before you-" Unable to to finish the sentence, Maura slowly removed her coat and set it down on the ground with her purse. She looked down at her belongings and shook her head. Raising her head back up to focus on Jane once more, she steadied herself and in an unwavering voice, she declared, "Then I won't leave."

Jane slammed her gun down onto the coffee table, causing Maura to flinch. Finally looking up, she spat words out through gritted teeth. "Just leave. This is done." She playfully picked the gun back up, as if it weren't a dangerous, loaded weapon.

Searching for words, not just any words, they had to be the right words, Maura focused her eyes on Jane's restless hands. "This is not done. You can easily turn back right now. Please."

Scoffing, Jane ran her fingers over the gun. "And what the fuck is easy about any of this? Easy. Do you think this is easy? Do you think I just picked this gun up and thought "Oh, this'll be a fun afternoon activity?" Do you honestly think that making this decision was fucking easy?" She snarled. "Fuck you."

"Insulting me isn't going to make me leave, Jane. You should know me better than that. And yes, that was- that was poor wording. But Jane, you can put it down right now, and we can talk about this. I can- we can help you."

Seemingly past the point of reason, Jane smirked, "Help me? You can help me? I'm trying to help you."

A sob escaped Maura's throat. "You aren't making any sense- you aren't- how does this help me? Jane, this won't help anything. You aren't helping me right now, you're hurting me."

Jane chuckled again. "Sure. But it would be the last time I hurt you. I've already hurt you, hurt my family, hurt everyone else too much."

Maura didn't move.

"Do you know how I felt when I graduated from the academy? I was thrilled. I was a cop! I was going to stop the bad guys, I was going to stop people from hurting each other. Do you know how I felt when I caught my first perp?" Maura cocked an eyebrow, wondering where this speech was going. "I was ecstatic. I really did get to stop a bad guy! I had made a difference. Boston was one bit safer because of me." Jane stopped, smiled, and shook her head.

"Do you know how I felt when I shot my first perp? I've never told anyone this, I'm badass Rizzoli, y'know? But I felt sick. Sure, I stopped another bad guy, but at what cost? After everybody had left the scene I ran into a back alley and barfed. I puked until all I had left was bile, and it burned the back of my throat. But I had to keep going, right? So I went back to the station and everybody was patting my back, congratulating me, celebrating the fact that I had just shot someone. Somebody's child, somebody's partner, somebody's parent."

Maura was taken aback by Jane's words. "But Jane, what if you hadn't shot the perp? What would have happened if they had gone free?"

"You don't understand! What did I do for the family of my "achievement"? I took somebody away from them. I don't know what would have happened if they had gotten away, or if we had just cuffed them. They were dead, and that's all that matters. And I got a goddamned slap on the back for it." Jane showed Maura the gun in her hand. "I keep getting slaps on the back for killing even more people. For using this."

Maura resisted the urge to move towards Jane, to take her into her arms. "Jane, you did what you had to do. You did what your job required you to do, you-"

"I'm a fucking murderer, Maura."

"Jane." Maura ran her hands through her hair. "Jane, you are not a killer. You stop killers. You catch monsters. You've saved so many people."

"I'm just one of those monsters with a badge attached to my hip. I just get to justify all the killing I do because I get paid to wave a gun around like- like you said- like I'm judge and jury and I get to decide who I want to shoot and when. I get money in return for taking lives. For causing pain."

Maura could feel herself choking on guilt. She had said that, but she hadn't meant it, she hadn't meant it, she was just caught up in a rage. "You know I didn't mean that. You know it! My head wasn't clear and I was just lashing out. Jane, please, I did not mean it, and you know that it isn't true."

"But it is!" Jane slammed her fist down on the coffee table hard. Hard enough to shatter the glass and send her hand through sharp shards. Her next words were barely above a whisper. "It fucking is."

Again Maura suppressed the urge to run to Jane, to take care of the bleeding hand, to take care of Jane herself. "Your hand-"

"They're already covered in enough blood. This doesn't matter. This is just one more little spatter to add to the collection." Jane flicked a tiny shard of glass from one of the many cuts on her hand, then licked the spot to clear the blood that followed.

"Jane, you know you have to use force sometimes. You would've been killed many times over if it weren't for you gun." Maura flinched as she heard the irony of her words. "I'd be dead too, Frankie would be dead, so many others too. You've saved more than you've killed. You stop pain, you don't cause it."

Silence.

"Hoyt."

Maura looked at Jane quizzically. "Jane, Hoyt's dead. What does he have to do with this?"

Jane let out a giggle that quickly turned into full blown laughter. "Everything. This is all because of him."

Maura was slightly confused by the complete change of subject. "Jane, it's not your fault he attacked me, attacked Frankie. You can't beat yourself up over that. You didn't intentionally cause that. That pain had nothing to do with you."

Grinning, Jane met Maura's eyes, and held her gaze. "Not that, Maura, not that."

"Then?"

"I killed him."

As the conversation progressed, Maura was becoming more and more distressed, as she was completely unable to follow Jane's line of thought. "Yes, you did. If you hadn't, we'd likely be dead."

"I enjoyed it."

"Jane?"

"Yeah, I had nightmares about it, but most of them were about him harming you. The more flashbacks I had, the more I realized that killing him was enjoyable. The feeling when I felt that scalpel pierce his chest. I replay it in my head. A lot."

Maura's face was full of concern. "Jane, that could be PTSD. Or, or, I don't know right now, but I do know that you do not enjoy killing. Especially after what you told me just a few minutes ago."

"I. Fucking. Loved. It. That's when I realized that I'm a monster, just like he was. That's when all the others I've killed started haunting me."

"I think you're confused. I think you think you enjoyed killing him, but I think you just enjoyed the relief that he would never be able to hurt you, or me, anymore." Maura entwined her hands around the back of her own neck. "Jane, you aren't a monster. You do what you have to, and I know you avoid lethal methods at all costs. Hoyt haunts you, and that's okay, but you have to realize that your sense of reality is twisted right now. You clearly aren't thinking straight. You need to listen to me. You are a good person."

Jane looked up at Maura one last time, and she slowly raised her gun so that it was level with her head. She sighed. "Maur..."

Maura was openly sobbing now, and clenched her eyes shut. She pleaded, her last resort, repeatedly saying Jane's name over and over until she heard the loud eruption of a gun firing. "Jane!" She slumped to the ground, crying even harder than before, maybe harder than she ever had in her life. "No."

"No." She covered her face with her hands.

But then she heard the sound of a gun being unloaded, being disarmed. Her eyes snapped open, and Jane was trembling, trying to dismantle as much of her gun as possible. Jane's arm shot up and pointed towards the wall behind Maura. Maura slowly turned and saw a hole through a plaque on the wall, the plaque that Jane had been awarded after the incident with Bobby Marino.

"I'm sorry." The words were small, and Maura could barely hear them. She finally allowed herself to run to Jane's side. She took her in her arms, held her as close as possible. Jane buried her face into Maura's body and started to weep. "I'm not a hero. I'm nothing. Nothing."

Maura pulled Jane closer, almost into her lap. "No, Jane. You're everything. And I love you."

Jane's tears continued to fall, and she was crying loudly, an almost animalistic sound.

They stayed like that until Jane had exhausted herself and had gently fallen asleep, head pushed up against Maura's shoulder.

"You're my everything."

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**props if you recognize the title, and know that you have good taste.**

**reviews are always welcome and appreciated!**


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